Re: A GNU Distribution

[Richard Stallman]

Please forgive me for taking so long to respond.

    So: 
    1) The GNU system was announced and its purpose was declared.
    2) All of the pieces are now arguably in place for creating this system.
    2b) Meanwhile, other systems have been put together in an indirect way
    (via non-free GNU/Linux distributions) to meet the GNU project's goals. 
    3) The present, short-term goal would be to finally fulfil the plans
    laid out in #1

    I'm repeating myself a bit from my previous emails but I think that the
    project should be completed with its original stated goals as the
    primary motivation to do so. 

I agree: if we do it, this would be the reason for it.

    Being user-friendly? To me, this first of all mostly implies a
    user-friendly desktop environment, which Gnome already has as its
    guiding principal and has achieved nicely. The GNU system architects, in
    my opinion, shouldn't have to worry about that as a primary concern; as
    long as they include Gnome as the desktop environment, they get user
    friendliness for free.

I agree.

    Being the number one free OS? I think that will come for free as well,
    though it will depend on some momentum. Let's face it, when people think
    "free OS", they think GNU.

The name GNU would lead people to try it, but they would still judge
by the results.  The people working on Trisquel and Parabola are
capable, so we would have to work hard to do as good a job as they do.

I would feel much better about the idea if it somehow didn't involve
competing with them.
--
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/